Growth in Ethanol Demand will have to Come from Exports

Jan 04, 2021

By Meghan Grebner

An ag economist says opportunity for growth in ethanol demand isn’t going to happen in the US.
Tanner Ehmke, manager of CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange, says fundamental shifts in domestic usage of gasoline will force the industry to develop new markets for ethanol.

“We have to look abroad, send it into the export market- places like Brazil and China especially. That is a gigantic market where there is opportunity. Really the focus there for ethanol is where you can grow outside of the US when we have weaker demand here in the US.”

While the coronavirus pandemic has drastically reduced the use of gasoline in the US in 2020, Ehmke does anticipate a post-COVID spike in the coming months.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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